A Social HarmApproach

TheCrime and Deviance

Channel

Chris.Livesey

1 www.sociology.org.uk

Shortcutstv

In Part One we laid the groundwork for a harm-basedapproach by looking at some general criticisms ofconventional criminological approaches.

Having outlined why such approaches are consideredinadequate for understanding crime in contemporarysocieties, we can move forward by considering thealternative, in terms of the idea that, for Hillyard andTombs (2005), a social harm approach widens the waywe see crime, to include various forms of "detrimentalactivity" visited by "governments and corporations uponthe welfare of individuals”.

These forms of harm include things like a “lack ofwholesome food, inadequate housing or heating, lowincome, exposure to various forms of danger, violations ofbasic human rights, and victimisation to various forms ofcrime" - ideas that point towards how a social harmapproach is used to understand deviance.

Crime, Deviance and Harm: Part 2

2 www.sociology.org.uk

Shortcutstv

Hillyard and Tombs (2005) identify four areas of social harm:

1. What are social harms?

Examples of this type include: premature death or injurythrough medical treatment; violence such as car‘accidents’; work-related injuries; pollution, different formsof violence (including racism and sexism); lack of adequatefood or shelter; death, torture and brutality by state officials.

Physical

Examples here include: poverty, unemployment,fraud (including product ‘mis-selling’),misappropriation of funds by government,corporate malpractice, cartels and price-fixing,regressive taxation and welfare policies.

Financial / Economic

Examples of this type might include ethnicminority groups being disproportionatelytargeted for police stop-and-search operations.

Emotional and Psychological

Examples here range from the harmexperienced by rape victims - the act itself, theresponse of control agencies and the behaviourof defence lawyers – through child abuse to thetreatment of alternative sexualities (such asgay, lesbian and transgender identities).

Sexual

3 www.sociology.org.uk

Shortcutstv

Suggest one example of "detrimental activity" visited by "governments andcorporations upon the welfare of individuals” not included in the previous list.

Suggest two problems involved in holding“state officials” legally culpable for theirbehaviour.

Notes

4 www.sociology.org.uk

Shortcutstv

Hillyard and Tombs argue a harm approach it has two mainadvantages:

1. "Victims" have greater involvement in the overall process as definersof harm; “peoples’ understandings, attitudes, perceptions andexperiences” should help to define deviant behaviour rather than simplyallowing concepts of crime to be “pre-ordained by a government".

2. It is a more valid way of "developing a more accurate picture" of thekinds of harm that affect people over their lifetime than a simpledependence on conventional notions of crime and its statistical analysis.In this respect the objective is to build-up a picture of how different typesof harm - from poverty to pollution - affect the quality of peoples' life.

Where conventional criminology generally treats crime as a series ofseparate events that variously impact on some individuals more thanothers, a harm approach seeks to understand the overall impact ofrelated forms of harm on both populations and individuals. The argumenthere is that by tackling levels of potential and actual harms - fromairborne pollutants and poor diet to institutionalised racism andhomophobia - this approach addresses the fundamental causes of harmrather than treating the symptoms of such harm.

2. Advantages of a harm approach

This approach echoes Goldstein’s (1979) development of a "Problem-Oriented Policing" (POP) that seeks to understand and confront thecauses of offending behaviour in the social context in which it occurs,rather than simply arresting, processing and punishing offenders.

5 www.sociology.org.uk

Shortcutstv

Suggest two ways this approach addresses the “fundamental causes” ofharm.

Suggest two criticisms of the idea victimsshould be definers of harm.

Notes

6 www.sociology.org.uk

Shortcutstv

While conventional notions of crime involve, as we've seen, the need toestablish strict legal notions of intent that invariably focus on specificindividuals, this generally makes it difficult to address wider forms of harmand very easy for corporations and governments to escape responsibilityfor the harm they cause.

An illustrative example here is the harm caused by the worldwide bankingcrisis of 2008, the effects of which are still being felt around the globe. Inthe UK, for example, government investment has been substantiallyreduced in areas like social care, education, policing and so forth, yet thoseresponsible for creating the crisis - from senior banking figures togovernment ministers who reduced levels of banking regulation - are notheld legally culpable for their decisions and behaviours. The argument hereis that we need to introduce a wider sense of moral culpability into howwe consider and understand crime and deviance.

3. The allocation of responsibility

While conventional criminology combines asense of legal and moral culpability, bothare rooted in the individual perpetrator.Harm approaches seek to widen culpability,an approach illustrated by Dorling's (2005)argument that while a murderer has bothlegal and moral culpability for their actionswe need to extend culpability to those inpositions of power and authority becausetheir actions - or failure to act - create theconditions under which harmful acts areallowed to take place.

Dorling (2005) notes that "some areashave experienced no homicides over thelast two decades while other areas haveexperienced 10 or more" - and thesignificant factor in each is that areas withhigh levels of homicide are those with highlevels of poverty. As Hillyard and Tombsargue "This raises the interesting questionof whether the allocation of responsibilitylies solely with the individual murderer oralso with those who have either failed toeradicate or have reproduced poverty inthese areas”.

7 www.sociology.org.uk

Shortcutstv

Explain what is meant by “introducing a wider sense of moral culpabilityinto how we consider and understand crime and deviance”

Suggest one argument for and oneagainst the idea "the allocation ofcriminal responsibility lies solely with theindividual offender”.

Notes

8 www.sociology.org.uk

Shortcutstv

Criminological responses to harm involve, as we've seen, "some form ofretribution or punishment on the part of the state" that is variouslydevolved through people, such as judges, magistrates and lawyers, "whoare largely unrepresentative of general populations". This creates"relatively closed criminal justice systems inhabited by unelected,unaccountable and non-representative elites" that, in turn, focus more onthe criminality of the poor and the powerless while leaving the moralculpability of rich and powerful social groups largely untouched.

While lower-class criminality can’t be ignored, a harm-based approachargues that the moral and legal culpability of elite groups - from privatecorporations to politicians - is something that needs to be addressed fortwo reasons:

Firstly, the behaviour of "legally untouched" elites impacts, as Dorlingsuggests, on the behaviour of non-elite groups.

Secondly, many of the practices and behaviours of elite groups that causedirect harms to populations are currently situated outside the criminal law.

4. Elite culpabilities

Conventional criminology - from Bhopalonwards - has major problems dealing withcorporate and state crime, partly becauselegally-culpable individuals are hugely-difficultto identify and partly because these are also"crimes of the powerful" that, not surprisinglyperhaps, the powerful fail to prosecute.

Harm approaches avoid these problems bymodifying the way we think about legalculpability; where powerful elites have a moralculpability for their behaviour - and the variousharms they cause - they can then be heldlegally culpable for that behaviour.

Work-related deaths, for example, can beinvestigated as homicides if it can be shownthat such deaths were the result ofnegligence, deliberate risk-taking and the like- even where those in authority had nointention of deliberately causing someone’sdeath.

5. Crimes of the powerful

9 www.sociology.org.uk

Shortcutstv

Suggest one way elite groups may be morally culpable for the criminalbehaviour of the lower classes.

Suggest two problems with our ability todefine and assess “moral culpability”.

Notes

10 www.sociology.org.uk

Shortcutstv

Feeley and Simon (1992) argue that in recent timespenal policy has seen the development of an actuarialapproach that involves a move away from "a focus onrehabilitation and reform" to one focused on "risk" -offenders are increasingly punished both for what theyhave done and for what they might do "in the future".

An example of this idea is the development of"indeterminate sentences for Public Protection"(IPP), introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 2003,that involve offenders initially serving a minimumprison sentence. However, their subsequent release isdependent upon satisfying the authorities they no-longer “pose a threat to the community”.

Around 14,000 offenders (just under 20% of the prisonpopulation) are currently serving indeterminatesentences, although this figure includes those servinglife sentences for murder.

From May, 2012, however, no further indeterminatesentences can be handed down, although thosepreviously given such sentences must still serve them.

6. A critique of risk

11 www.sociology.org.uk

Shortcutstv

Briefly explain how indeterminate sentences can be used to control thebehaviour of prison populations.

Why might imprisoned offenders find itdifficult to show they are no-longer a “threatto the community”?

Notes

12 www.sociology.org.uk

Shortcutstv

References

Dorling, Danny (2005) "Prime suspect: murder in Britain" in Dorling,Danny; Gordon, Dave; Hillyard, Paddy; Pantazis, Christina;Pemberton, Simon and Tombs, Steve (2008) "Why harm mattersmore than crime": Centre for Crime and Justice Studies

Feeley, M. M. and Simon, J. (1992), ‘The New Penology: Notes onthe Emerging Strategy of Corrections and its Implications’, Criminol-ogy, Vol. 30

Goldstein, Herman (1979) "Improving Policing: A Problem-OrientedApproach": Crime and Delinquency (April)

© ShortCutsTv (2012)

TheCrime and Deviance

Channel

Sociology Central